“He’s alive,” Paulsen said. “But the round fractured his pelvis, nicked a nerve bundle. Surgery saved function, but he’s out. Indefinite desk status.”
The two men stood quietly for a moment.
Dante exhaled through his nose. “Harrison was your cornerstone.”
“Still is,” Paulsen said. “But I need a new ground pounder who can shoot and think at the same time. And I don’t have time to train a rookie.”
Dante shook his head. “I’ve never run with Bravo.”
“You’ve never needed to,” Paulsen replied. “But you’re Eagle’s Talon-qualified, and that buys you the clearance to slide into a tier-one rotation without a six-week vetting chain. You can keep up. You know field tempo. The rest we build in-house.”
Dante leaned back slightly, arms still crossed. “Why me?”
“Because you’ve got the discipline for strategy, but you’re still dangerous in a room. And I don’t have the luxury of personality chemistry right now. I need performance. You fit.”
Paulsen let it hang then added, “Medical’s ready. If you say no, no harm, I’ll find someone else. But if you’re in, we start transition training Monday. Full Bravo immersion. No half measures.”
Dante’s eyes stayed on the map glowing red and yellow across Northwest Africa. Shannon was somewhere in Alabama,learning to fly in circles. And now here he was again, standing on the edge of something that would probably bite back.
He looked at Paulsen. “I’ll get the shots. The reactions will blow my weekend plans of watching TV.”
Paulsen didn’t smile, just nodded. “See you Monday.”
NINETEEN
FORT NOVOSEL
The air hit like a soaked towel to the face. Shannon stepped off the transport shuttle onto the cracked tarmac at Fort Novosel and immediately felt her shirt cling to her back. Alabama heat wasn’t heat the way other places knew it—it was personal. The kind of humidity that found its way under armor, under skin, and into lungs.
She adjusted the strap of her issued backpack and fell into step behind the other trainees, boots thumping in staggered rhythm toward the admin building. Nobody talked. These were the silence-before-the-storm hours when everyone still looked clean and still believed they might be the best in the class.
The building looked like every other structure on base: government-tan, functional, boxy, indifferent to beauty. The glass doors hissed as they stepped inside. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.
A man in BDUs barely glanced up from the clipboard on the counter. “Flight Class 12-1A,” he said flatly. “Line up by the wall. I’ll call names.”
The group shuffled into formation. Ten students. Three officers. Seven warrant candidates. No handshakes. Just sizing each other up in the space between instructions.
“Torres, Jacob.”
“Here.”
“Rhodes, Kylie.”
A short, compact woman near the middle of the line tilted her chin up. “Present.” Shannon didn’t look over. She kept her eyes on the wall clock.
“Johnson, Shannon.”
She stepped forward, ID extended. After her name was leaked in the Academy, there was no use keeping things secret anymore.
The man took it and paused. His eyes flicked to her name, then up to her face. Not long but enough to tell her he recognized it. Not from her, but from something older.
He handed the card back. “Room assignment, packet, mess schedule’s inside.”
She took the folder. Nodded once. Moved on.
The barracks weren’t fancy, but they were clean. Her room had two bunks, plain white walls, and two narrow desks beneath the window. A ceiling fan spun slowly like it was pacing itself for August. Her roommate hadn’t arrived yet.
Shannon sat on the edge of the bottom bunk, opened her packet, and started reading. The schedule was tight. Daily PT, flight classroom instruction, rotary systems intro, safety protocols. Emergency procedures. Sim rotations. Four weeks until primary evaluation.
